science

Knowing How to Know

Knowing How to Know is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Knowing How to Know rather than just read about it. In short: Knowing How to Know is a book by the writer Idries Shah published posthumously by Octagon Press in 1998. A paperback edition was published in 2000.

Key takeaways

Knowing How to Know belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Knowing How to Know to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Knowing How to Know from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Knowing How to Know is a book by the writer Idries Shah published posthumously by Octagon Press in 1998. A paperback edition was published in 2000. Shortly before he died, Shah stated that his books form a complete course that could fulfil the function he had fulfilled while alive. As such, Knowing How To Know can be read as part of a whole course of study.

Content

Knowing How To Know builds on the foundations laid in Shah's previous publications Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way and The Commanding Self. Some of the themes addressed in the book include the often unrecognised barriers which prevent knowledge and understanding and the necessary conditions and factors which must be present for learning to take place.

Reception In a Sunday Telegraph review, Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing wrote of Knowing How To Know that it "needs attentive reading, if only because some of its contentions are startling and need time to think about . . . This would not be a book by Shah if it were not often very funny. In short, those who know Shah's work will not need to be told it is a cornucopia of very various delights; those who do not may find it a fascinating introduction to the Sufi view of life." The psychologist and writer Robert Ornstein stated that the book "presented a blueprint of the human mental structure. Psychology Today described Knowing How To Know as "A major psychological and cultural event of our time" and the New York Times review commented that "One is immediately forced to use one's mind in a new way."

References

External links Official Idries Shah website

Illustrations

Knowing How to Know: Idries Shah — Idries Shah

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Knowing How to Know

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Knowing How to Know claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Knowing How to Know before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Knowing How to Know ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Knowing How to Know

In research: Knowing How to Know appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Knowing How to Know in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Knowing How to Know is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1998 books, Octagon Press books, Sufi literature by Idries Shah, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Knowing How to Know outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Knowing How to Know in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Knowing How to Know means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Knowing How to Know out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Knowing How to Know in simple terms?

Knowing How to Know is a book by the writer Idries Shah published posthumously by Octagon Press in 1998. A paperback edition was published in 2000.

Why does Knowing How to Know matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Knowing How to Know?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Knowing How to Know.